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Senior guard Shaniya Taylor led the Rams with 15 points, adding two assists and three steals.

“We’re very young,” Cleveland coach Chris Danehower said. “We’ve gotten better as the season has gone along. A lot of our younger players are starting to be crucial players and contributing.”

The leading scorer of the game was Smithfield-Selma’s Logan Lee, who scored 23 points and provided seven steals in the losing effort.

“In the beginning I think we did good because were playing as a team,” Lee said. “After that I feel like we kind of made bad decisions. We started turning the ball over.”

The loss brings Smithfield to 0-2 in conference this season.

“Our weakness is a lack of experience and understanding the importance of somebody stepping up to the role,” said Smithfield-Selma head coach Stacy Holland. “We need someone to take pressure off of Logan and step into that complimentary role.”

BOYS

Smithfield-Selma (7-8, 1-1) used an 18-6 fourth quarter run to take down Cleveland on Wednesday. Senior Anthony Council scored 22 points to contribute to the win.

“In spurts, we did good,” said Spartans coach Matt Cuddington. “There was a spurt there in the second half where we weren’t playing very good but in the second half we came out and decided we were going to play defense and we played better.”

Cleveland was led by senior Garrett Davenport, who had a hot shooting night with 17 points.

“Playing as a team and defensively, we need to pick it up,” said Davenport. “We’re slacking and not playing with a lot of heart and if we just pick it up we can play with anybody.”

The loss dropped Cleveland (5-12) to 0-3 within the Two Rivers 3A Conference.

“I just told them to keep their head up and keep playing hard because we have a chance to win any game,” said Cleveland head coach John Jacobs. “We can beat anybody in our conference.”